ReMix:The Legend of Zelda "The First Look at Gold" 3:22

Happy St. Patty's Day! Top o' the ReMix to ya! They're magically delicious! Kiss me, I'm... Austrian-Welsh, actually. And other stereotypically event-appropriate sayings, as well! To celebrate this day of greenness & responsibly safe-yet-excessive imbibing, we've got a serene folk ballad from Ms. Rebecca E. Tripp with a Renaissance/Celtic vibe to it & a mix title that would make any leprechaun happy:

"This is my cover of the "Title" theme from The Legend of Zelda. I realize that the original theme has been done to death, remixed, performed live, and varied for 30 years! Still, I've been planning to make my own arrangement of it for a while now. I wanted to do something different, yet stick with a style that suits the theme, so I chose this pseudo-Renaissance style with Celtic and medieval instruments. Hopefully, I've managed to pour something new into this iconic theme!"

I'm sure it's somewhat "pseudo" - what isn't, right? - but I do love the general sense of authenticity, including a lack of bass, minimal percussion, and a nice blend of plucked & blown period elements. This is a style that's close to much of what Rebecca does anyway, minus the larger orchestral components & ambient stuff, and it's an effective way to breathe something new into a piece which, as she notes, has been extensively interpreted over the years. Judges did have some issues with intonation & humanization at parts; Chimpazilla addresses this in her approval:

"I think the balance is fine, considering the entire arrangement is played with higher-register instruments, my ears aren't expecting bass. The articulations could be more natural but there's nothing here that's standing out terribly for me, nothing that puts this below the bar. (I don't anticipate any listeners saying "that vibrato tho!") The arrangement is beautifully detailed and I love the interplay between all the elements."

Jivemaster concurred in his own vote:

"The progression of the arrangement in my opinion was strong - sections did not go long without changing into something new, which made the track feel short and left the listener wanting more (in a good way). I think the lack of humanization was the biggest issue here, but it wasn't as noticeable as the track went on."

It's harder to do exposed acoustic/folk stuff like this without ambient or ensemble instrumentation to augment (and even mask a little) the synthetic nature of samples, which comes through a bit more than usual... but the arrangement is unique & full of character and essentially requires this more sparse approach, so it's ultimately a tradeoff. Either way, it's the main Zelda theme in a way you probably haven't heard before, on a particularly appropriate day, so it seems pretty lucky to me - enjoy!